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GREENLAND REPORT (1)
I have been intending to do a post on Greenland for some time. This is a vitally important part of the Arctic region and contains a high proportion of the permanent land ice in the Arctic. Some of the news is not nearly as bad as one might believe.
In this first report I'll look at the current ice extent and temperatures in Greenland and put these into context. I shall also explore some longer term figures. I shall begin with a few geographical, geological and ice sheet facts. This introductory post is necessarily a long one but my future Greenland posts and updates can refer back to this one as a reference point and can be much shorter!
Greenland Geography:
In this part I am pulling together some of the fascinating facts about Greenland's geography and geology and I draw heavily on data, maps, charts and photographs from Wikipedia. Greenland has an area of 836,330 square miles. To put this into context, the US is about 5 times bigger than Greenland but Greenland is 9 times larger that the whole of the UK.
The island has 27,554 miles of coastline. It stretches for 1,656 miles from north to south between its longest points and 750 miles from east to west at its widest points. Permanent ice still covers most of the landmass at the time of the summer minimum extent. The ice sheet has an area of about 660,000 square miles, a length of 1,500 miles and a width of 680 miles. The average ice sheet thickness is 6,600 ft to 9,800 ft. Much more on this, seasonal variations and longer term trends below.
The country looks much larger than it actually is on most global maps due to flattening out the earth's surface. The map above moves Greenland alongside Africa for a true comparison.
Greenland is very mountainous. If we removed the ice, the island would like it does in the map above. The highest point is Gunnbjorn Fjeld at 12,119 ft and this is the highest peak inside the whole of the Arctic circle - it's located in the east at 68.6N and 29.5W. There are high plateau regions in much of the south and the east and also in parts of the west and, to a lesser extent, in the north. Much of the eastern plateau is well over 2,000 m (6,500 ft). A few of the models (such as JMA) do not adjust mean pressure to sea level equivalents and as pressure is much higher over the elevated plateau this "can" give a very false impression with MSLP sometimes overstated by well over 25mb!
This photograph from the eastern coast shows how the high mountains and the plateau extend right up to the sea for long distances.
Parts of the centre of Greenland, particularly further north are close to or below sea level as can be seen in the "iceless" map above. Surface lakes have been discovered as well as unfrozen water under deep layers of ice. The Greenland ice sheet is actually very mobile. There is some very dense ice in the thickest parts of the ice sheet. Snowfall accumulations in the centre is steadily compressed into ice that flows towards the outer margins just as in Antarctica or with other larger snow fields and glaciers. Very close to the edges, the ice melts in the summer half of the year and also breaks off into icebergs. Snow deposited on the central parts of the ice sheet is gradually compressed into ice. To give an idea of this compression, new snow falling onto the ice sheet has a density of around 60 kilograms per cubic metre while water has a density of 1,000 kilograms per cubic metre. In the central part of the ice sheet the temperature never rises above freezing so the snow never melts (not even with Arctic amplification and warming). Instead, it becomes buried under new layers of snow, with the weight of the new snow increasingly compressing the layers below and steadily becoming denser. Once the density of the snow reaches 830 kilograms per cubic metre, which is around 80 metres deep, all the air passages between the crystals are sealed off so the only air that exists is in trapped bubbles. As the depth increases the density of the ice increases further and at 917 kilograms per cubic metre air bubbles are compressed. At this stage the ice has become glacial ice and it cannot be compressed anymore.
Scientists have been conducting much research into the Greenland ice sheet. Core samples and sophisticated techniques are helping them put together accurate temperature records going back over 130,000 years! We can look into all this fascinating and very important research on this thread. Now I'll move on to the current conditions:
Current Greenland Ice Extent, Summer Melting and Temperatures:
In this section I shall rely heavily on the latest NSIDC data.
This time of year the ice sheet is normally expanding with little or no melt. The white area is where there is no melt and red areas (none now) where there is melting in progress. The grey areas nearer the coast are beyond the main (thicker) ice sheet but are not ice free and in fact they are all snow covered right now. NSIDC explain: "The satellite sensor’s resolution is not fine enough to distinguish ice from land when a pixel overlaps the coast."
This map shows the cumulative melts days for this year to date. The white areas are zero. Around the margins the reds and pinks tell us that there has been some net melting on 60 to 80 days this year. There are one or two isolated tiny brown areas with around 100 melt days.
This chart puts 2018 into context with 2018 (red) compared to the 1981-2010 30 year mean (blue), the last 25 years average (1994-2018) in dark grey and the last 10 years (2009 to 2018) in light grey. The melt season has seen large fluctuations during the summer but was well above average in late July. The melt season, however, came to an abrupt and early finish in mid-August. Here's the reason:
While the Arctic Ocean and almost all the Eurasian Arctic have seen some exceptionally high surface temperatures with very strong +ve anomalies, the Canadian Arctic and almost all of Greenland have seen much lower surface temperatures with strong -ve anomalies. The Greenland average anomaly for this month to date is running at -1.65c but some central and western parts have -ve anomalies exceeding -5c. and widely below -3c. The September average anomaly for all of Greenland was -0.11c. These values are in such stark contrast to those elsewhere in the Arctic region, particularly around the North Pole. These -ve anomalies represent temperatures well below freezing:
Widely below -20c and much of the central eastern plateau is below -40c.
I have produced this interactive chart. It is is available for the entire satellite imagery series from 1979 to date on this link:
https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/greenland-surface-melt-extent-interactive-chart/
I included 2018 (blue line), 2017 (green line), 2012 (yellow line) and 1980 (black line) and compare all these to the 30 year mean, 25 year spread and 10 year spread. It's a somewhat busy chart but I wanted to show the most recent years, the record high melt year of 2012 and the lowest melt year of 1980 for the whole 1979 to 2018 period compared to the longer term averages. Interestingly 2018 had a late start as well as an early finish - so a very short melt season but with some periods of strong melting in mid-summer. 2017 had a longer melt season but with much lower melt rates for much of the time. 2012 completely dwarfs the other years with some exceptional melt rates. The early end to the 2018 melt season is unusual and actually ahead (below) the 30 year mean and well ahead of the decadal average. This is very much due to circulation patterns. It can hardly be down to low solar activity when much of the Arctic region is so warm right now.
This chart shows the model results for the Greenland Ice Sheet snowfall and melt runoff since 1960. The model (MAR 3.9) was run using input from National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) weather reanalysis data. The surface mass balance (SMB) refers to the net difference between snowfall input and meltwater runoff, or evaporation, loss. The bars show the relative difference from the 1981 to 2010 reference period of observations and modeling.
Not only did 2018 have a short melt season (the yellow bar) which overall was actually below the 58 year mean (the 0 axis), due to its brevity but it has seen the second highest snowfall year to date (the red bar) for the entire period and with 2 more full months to go, it's likely to smash the 1972 record - so a truly exceptional year and some very good news for a change but there is a slight "possible" downside (see my quote from the NSIDC report below). The surface mass balance (blue bar) has seen a lot of negative years since 2006 mostly due to the very high melt rates. 2018 to date has the fourth equal best SMB since 1960, the highest since 1996 and may well end up in second place behind 1972 (no more melting and further snowfall still to come).
This from the most recent NSIDC report on Greenland:
...." exceptional winter snow accumulation and heavy, summer snowfall, drove the net snow input mass to 130 billion tons above the 1981 to 2010 average. This was followed by a near-average melt and runoff period, resulting in a large net mass gain for the ice sheet in 2018 of 150 billion tons. This is the largest net gain from snowfall since 1996, and the highest snowfall since 1972. However, several major glaciers now flow significantly faster than in these earlier years. The net change in mass of the ice sheet overall, including this higher discharge of ice directly into the ocean, is not clear at this point but may be a smaller loss or even a small gain. This is similar to our assessment for 2017, and in sharp contrast to the conditions for the preceding decade. Persistent winds from the northeast triggered high snowfall for 2017 to 2018 along the eastern Greenland coast. These winds blew across open ocean areas allowing the atmosphere to entrain moisture and deposit it as heavy snowfall on the ice sheet....."
The top graph shows the 2018 reflectivity trend for the entire Greenland Ice Sheet through September 15, and four reference years: 2000, 2010, 2012, and 2017. The grey band represents the 5-to-95 percent range for the 2000 to 2009 reference period. The maps below show average monthly albedo, or solar reflectivity, for July 2018, on the left, and August 2018, on the right.
In Antarctica the vast white ice sheet there reflects over 85% of the sun's rays back into space during their summer half of the year and this is known as the albedo effect (I described this process on this thread in a post further up this page). This protects the ice from melting and preserves it. The Greenland ice sheet also has a strong but lesser albedo effect. The top chart compares 2018 (in purple) to recent years. Compared to the 2000-09 average (the grey spread) it's not surprising to see 2018 near the top. All that summer snowfall and increased white surfaces produced a far higher albedo than in many recent years. 2012 saw the lowest values. This from the NSIDC report:
...."High winter and spring snowfall, and a moderate initial pace of melting, resulted in a more reflective (higher albedo) surface for the ice sheet than in past summers. Since bright, fresh snow blanketed areas that were once darker, such as dirty snow or bare ice, July’s average albedo for the ice sheet was 5 to 9 percent above the 2000 to 2009 reference period. Wet snow also has a darker surface, or lower albedo. Increased surface melting, above-average temperatures, and the three spikes in melting, August’s albedo decreased to more average values. However, the albedo along the western coast remained above average....."
Since August we have seen the early end to the melt season, those below average surface temps (well below this month) and continued above average snowfall. It's highly likely that the albedo has been very strong during the last few weeks.
This chart shows the thickness of the Greenland ice sheet. As earlier, the satellite sensory equipment does not pick up very well the areas beyond the continuous thick ice sheet. Those coastal regions are currently ice and/or snow covered. So, although Greenland extends south of the Arctic Circle towards the Atlantic Ocean and is exposed to the jet stream and the Gulf Stream and takes a battering from passing depressions and Atlantic storms for long periods every winter, it's generally high elevation helps it to retain much of its ice sheet and produces some huge snowfalls. It has been impacted by global warming and climate change but, so far at least, not nearly to the same extent as the polar regions and the Arctic Ocean. Some of the hyped reports have been very misleading. I intend to do a post on global ice extent quite soon and this will show the importance of the Greenland ice sheet and more especially the Antarctica ice sheet in, at least, slowing down the impacts of overall ice loss through global warming. We also need to examine the rate of decline and thoroughly analyse the reasons, ignoring both extremes of the climate change debate to get at the facts. David

ANTARCTICA UPDATE
I was planning to do this update next week but with the recent interest shown in Antarctica, I've decided to bring it forward. Firstly I should repeat what I said in my introductory post - when I opened this "Arctic" thread" I always intended it to include Antarctica (see page 1 for my first post on that with loads of facts about it and comparisons to the Arctic) as well as Greenland (I'm planning a post on that later this week), global and glacial ice (posting on that in due course). If we really are going to examine global warming impacts on the Arctic and Arctic warming impacts on the N Hem (in particular) and make a fair and balanced assessment on this thread, then we must include global ice conditions. The Arctic gets most of the publicity due to the very rapid decline of permanent and older ice, the exceptionally high +ve SST anomalies up there and the very high 2m surface temps and I updated the current position on all of these last week. it's also surrounded by populated countries and closer to the N Am and European continents where much of the interest is generated. Meanwhile Antarctica gets far less notice, being an isolated continent. It is however, actually even more important than the Arctic and is the biggest contributor to slowing down the rate of global ice loss (more below on this).
In this post I will look at the current ice extent, the SSTs and the land temperatures down there and put this into context. Before I do that, just a word about James' @Singularity post on here this morning. That's a really nice summary of the recent warming trends in the Arctic and describing part of the feedback loop which has caused what a few call runaway or out of control ice loss and is very much what we shall be examining on this thread. I did a very long post on here "Arctic Report (5) - Longer Term Ice Extent - Putting The Current Position Into Context" (on August 18th, halfway down page 1 on this thread) and I went back through the satellite period which started in 1979 and then further back to 1850 with data based mostly on shipping logs and then a glance at the last 1,450 years where recent very sophisticated research into ice core samples and deep ocean floor sediments have given us a surprisingly accurate record of past ice extent. I really want to encourage a lot more contributions into all of this - facts, figures, analyses and paper reviews and an active debate. Very soon, I shall start reviewing some of the most relevant papers that I placed into the Research Portal and I know that Malcolm @Blessed Weather intends to do the same.
Right, on with my post. I shall comment below each chart.
Current Ice Extent:
Compared to the Arctic, Antarctica's winter sea ice extent is usually much closer to the 1981-2010 mean and in some years, including some quite recent ones, it has actually been close to or exceeded long term record highs such as in 2014 and previously in 2012 (see below).
Source: NASA https://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/csb/index.php?section=234
These charts show us 3 different decadal mean periods since the full satellite imagery records started in 1979. It includes the two record high years of 2012 and 2014. We can see that 2018 was running slightly below the means at its minimum point in late Feb/early March and still very slightly below the means right through to the maximum extent in their winter.
This chart tells us that 2018 had a blip in mid- September (due to unfavourable circulation patterns for several weeks bringing warmer than average temps at that time). Then the pattern changed and 2018 actually saw a very late maximum in early October, although 2017 saw an extremely late maximum.
Now this chart is not as important compared to the same one for the Arctic. Being a large land mass the winter sea ice that forms around the coast extends out to relatively low latitudes. The vast majority of sea ice melts each summer and there is practically no older sea ice. The sea ice sheet that reforms each fall is therefore not that thick. I will do another post at some stage on the land ice which is so important and plays a key role in global ice extent.
Sea Surface Temperatures - SSTs:
This chart is very simple at this time of the year when we have just seen the annual maximum ice extent. SSTs are mostly below -1.5c right out towards 60S.
The white areas over and around Antarctica are not neutral conditions, they are ice covered. Much of the ice free regions have -ve anomalies as they have for much of the last 3 months.
This global map shows us the actual values. Even out to just beyond 60S SSTs are close to 0c with values ranging from -2c to +6c.
Until mid September -ve anomalies prevailed over much of the southern ocean and often well beyond 60S. They have recovered slightly with neutral to slightly +ve anomalies now prevailing but still with some regions of -ve anomalies. How different all this is to the exceptional high Arctic Ocean SSTs!
2m Surface Temperature Anomalies:
Antarctica has been affected by global warming but in a very different ways to the Arctic. The temps over the main land mass are actually fairly typical with a trend in the last few years to more +ve anomalies in the west and more -ve anomalies in the drier east. Note that this is not always the case but a slight trend and the contrasts are slightly greater than normal right now. Highest +ves are around 3c to 5c above and lowest -ves are around 3c to 4c below. If you look to the text to the left of the chart this gives some more precise figures. The western landmass anomaly is on average +0.8c while the east is -1.2c (k = kelvin = celius and I'm not sure why they use the kelvin scale). If we include the sea + the land the 60S-90S has a -ve anomaly of -2.4c and going out even further to 66S-90S it is still a -ve of 1.5c. So Antarctica itself, plus its surrounding sea ice and much of the southern ocean as a whole is substantially colder than normal. There is currently some dense cold air over the ice sheet to the north-north west with -ve anomalies as much as -12c there.
Sea Level Pressure:
I do not normally include MSLP charts in my Antarctica reports by I wanted to attempt to answer @jules216's question in the post 2 above this one. He asks:
"My question re Antarctica arose from this GLOSEA 5 seasonal anomaly and the deep blue colors that engulf Antarctica and I wanted to know why is there such a strong anomaly" and I copy the ensemble chart below:
This chart is suggesting that the UK Met Office GLOSEA 5 model is predicting that MSLP will be "slightly" below average during the Antarctica summer. I'm not sure how accurate their forecasts are for that remote region. It's a long range forecast and is subject to change. Slightly lower than average pressure there would produce slightly stronger winds, slightly greater moisture and greater snowfall on the main landmass, perhaps being carried further into the interior than usual. Let's have a quick look at the current pressure charts.
The default pattern is higher pressure on the land mass, particularly over the inland high ice sheets and towards the interior where polar easterlies predominate all the year around. Then low pressure dominating from 60S to 40S ("The Roaring Forties" are the anomalous strong westerlies at 50S to 40S).
So Jules, the answer is that this is not a particularly strong anomaly - just slightly lower pressure than usual predicted to predominate during the Antarctic summer. I hope that this answers your question.
So overall, Antarctica is currently seeing below average SSTs and land temperatures with west/east +ve/-ve anomalies and not far below normal sea ice extent. If these lower temps persist, then the melt season may be rather slower than normal - no bad thing. David

Since the 2015/16 super El Nino, SSTs in the open waters of the Arctic have been running very much above average. The distribution across the whole Arctic Ocean in both years is surprisingly similar. Circulation patterns, wind direction and strength also make a difference (not shown). The high SSTs with large areas well above the critical level of -1.5c (where sea water starts to freeze) were prevailing in both years. With this and the high 2M surfaces temperatures right now (even higher than in 2016), this may well stall or slow the re-freeze for at least a short period. Unless the surface temps fall back quickly to well below freezing, the 2018 ice build up may continue at similar rates to 2016. The Siberian side is the warmest and that's where the ice extent is so far below average. The Canadian Arctic and Greenland are colder than normal right now and have been for a few weeks and ice accumulation in that part of the Arctic ocean will continue apace. We need to monitor the other side and especially those northern Russian and northern Siberian temperatures. Things may well turn around during November with a sustained faster recovery again.

Finally, in my next Arctic post (next week) I'll be addressing your previous comments and query wrt the longer term, older ice. I have pulled together the latest figures and they do not make pretty reading. David

SNIPPED (charts and most of the text removed to save space)

BB (Dave) ..

Thankyou for your, as usual, brilliant and informed reply.

I thought that your comparison with 2016 was very good, and although I have deleted quite a bit of it, I found it very convincing.

There are some differences though, which I will discuss below...

From your charts (in your post above) , you can see that -

1)The SST's on the Siberian side, a month ago, were higher than those of 2016. Now they are remarkably very similar.

2) Whereas on the Canadian side the SST's were lower this year - and they still are at present.

The same is true for the 2M temperatures. With the temperatures showing as -40C in Greenland (much lower than 2016) and those in the central and eastern Arctic still a little bit higher than 2016.

Now, I have no problem with agreeing with the demise of the ice over the satellite era.

But, this year, I think is somewhat different. At the moment, the ice is way ahead of 2016 on the Canadian side (western side?). The ice extent on the Eastern side was behind, but appears to have caught up (as per the last 2days).

The effect is that we more ice extent than 2016, and we seem to be moving further away.

The following is a graph from the ASIF which shows the results from JAXA (up to yesterday) -

As I hope you can see 2018 has accelerated away from 2016 in the last week and a half.

Now you are 'expecting' to see a slow down in 2018, (as per 2016), but there are some difference, and so far this month, the rate of acceleration is quite impressive.

Now I tend to use 'Maisie' for the very latest updates on ice changes (it gives the daily values by region) and an overall value for the latest 24 hour period.. It shows all types of the ice - and tends to be more accurate on coastal ice than NSIDC products, at this time of year. (Clearly. at this moment ice is freezing both at sea and around the coast) .

It therefore tends to 'forewarn' changes in the other products and therefore gives advance 'warning' of what is currently happening. It tends to be more reactive to any current changes.

It has consistently had daily ice gains of over 150K Km2 with three of over 200K Km2, over the last 10days, until today, when it dropped to a 40K Km2 gain, mainly because of a 60KKm2 decline in Kara. It has gained 2M Km2 in the last 12 days. Average is normally about 1.2 M Km2.

Is the drop in Kara the start of your forecasted slow down? It could be.

This year has been an interesting year so far, with the ice refreeze being delayed by the flood of warm air from the Pacific in September, just when the refreeze should have started, So far incursions from the Atlantic have been kept to a minimum. This I believe will be the deciding factor as to whether this year ends up as a 'rebuild' year or not.

Note - not a recovery year.

I hope that I have not upset people with an attempt at identifying the actual changes that are occurring today.

The historical recent past gives cause for concerns, but 'current' is at an interesting stage and could go either way.

Dave - MIA (UK)

Edit - I will do a more detailed look at ice thicknesses based upon the DMI charts above, in the next couple of days..

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Thankyou for your, as usual, brilliant and informed reply. I thought that your comparison with 2016 was very good, and although I have deleted quite a bit of it, I found it very convincing. There are some differences though, which I will discuss below...From your graph above (that I left) , you can see that -

1)The SST's on the Siberian side, a month ago, were higher than those of 2016. Now they are remarkably very similar.

2) Whereas on the Canadian side the SST's were lower this year - and they still are at present.

The same is true for the 2M temperatures. With the temperatures showing as -40C in Greenland (much lower than 2016) and those in the central and eastern Arctic still a little bit higher than 2016.

Now, I have no problem with agreeing with the demise of the ice over the satellite era. But, this year, I think is somewhat different. At the moment, the ice is way ahead of 2016 on the Canadian side (western side?). The ice extent on the Eastern side was behind, but appears to have caught up (as per the last 2days).

The effect is that we more ice extent than 2016, and we seem to be moving further away. As I hope you can see 2018 has accelerated away from 2016 in the last week and a half.

Now you are 'expecting' to see a slow down in 2018, (as per 2016), but there are some difference, and so far this month, the rate of acceleration is quite impressive. Now I tend to use 'Maisie' for the very latest updates on ice changes (it gives the daily values by region) and an overall value for the latest 24 hour period.. It shows all types of the ice - and tends to be more accurate on coastal ice than NSIDC products, at this time of year. (Clearly. at this moment ice is freezing both at sea and around the coast) . It therefore tends to 'forewarn' changes in the other products and therefore gives advance 'warning' of what is currently happening. It tends to be more reactive to any current changes. It has consistently had daily ice gains of over 150K Km2 with three of over 200K Km2, over the last 10days, until today, when it dropped to a 40K Km2 gain, mainly because of a 60KKm2 decline in Kara. It has gained 2M Km2 in the last 12 days. Average is normally about 1.2 M Km2.

Is the drop in Kara the start of your forecasted slow down? It could be. This year has been an interesting year so far, with the ice refreeze being delayed by the flood of warm air from the Pacific in September, just when the refreeze should have started, So far incursions from the Atlantic have been kept to a minimum. This I believe will be the deciding factor as to whether this year ends up as a 'rebuild' year or not. Note - not a recovery year.

I hope that I have not upset people with an attempt at identifying the actual changes that are occurring today. The historical recent past gives cause for concerns, but 'current' is at an interesting stage and could go either way. Dave - MIA (UK)

Edit - I will do a more detailed look at ice thicknesses based upon the DMI charts above, in the next couple of days..

SNIPPED - charts removed and text edited (to save space)

Hello again Dave (MIA),

Firstly, as we are both Davids and I am called either David or Dave, I'm happy to stick to David on weather forums and I see that you prefer to call yourself Dave. This will avoid confusing some of members who read our posts

Thank you for your recent update. It's great to have your contributions on this thread and I'm delighted that you are joining me in being a very frequent poster on here. I hope that others will join us too, such as Malcolm @Blessed Weather who has posted a number of times but has other commitments with the stratosphere coming first for him ahead of the Arctic - although the two subjects have a closer than ever relationship these days with Arctic amplification and ice loss perhaps complicating the surface to troposphere and more significantly the troposphere to stratosphere coupling processes (or lack of it at times). I have other weather interests too but this thread will be my number one priority throughout the year. Between us (all) we can ensure that we keep the latest statistics updated.

This post is just a short (by my standards that is!) reply to yours as I'm in the middle of preparing my "glacial ice" post which will be ready very late today or tomorrow morning. I accept that 2018 has raced ahead of 2016 during the last couple of days. As I said last time, we can pick from a range of charts and some showed the cross-over less than a week ago and some, like the one you showed just now, show that happening, a few days earlier than that (it looks like October 23rd on yours) and your chart is up to October 27th. Let's look at the October 30th chart produced late yesterday (October 31st chart due in several hours time). I'll use the first one that I referred to last time for consistency.

This also has the cross-over with 2016 around October 23rd and shows a week of further rapid recovery for 2018 while 2016 had that pause. Indeed 2018 has now caught up with 2012 which saw that sustained rapid recovery from the record low point in September practically without a pause until the second week in December. In recent years that was unusual and most years have seen periods of rapid recovery with several pauses or even a short setback. Now we can see that 2016 started another spurt from November 1st-12th. Should 2018 have a pause we could be back to square one and neck and neck again with 2016 within a week or so. By which time 2016 had a setback and slight net melt.

I am now even more confident that a pause is highly likely (but nothing is certain) within the next few days. I refer you to my post yesterday on the "Countdown to Winter 2018-19" thread. That gave my latest thoughts along with the evidence with snow cover/ice and 2m surface temp charts up to October 30th (SSTs have hardly changed in just 4 days up there). The Pacific side of the Arctic which, unlike some recent years, is perhaps the biggest worry right now has warmed and is predicted to warm further with some 2M temps going above 0c. The Bering Sea has (in recent years) tended to freeze over more quickly than on the Atlantic side (especially the Barents and Kara Seas) as it's more land locked. The powerful typhoon season has produced those anomalously high SSTs in the far north Pacific. This will definitely restrict ice growth for at least several more weeks there and then, as always, it will largely depend on circulation patterns and the overall distribution of 2M surface temps. I probably also disappointed snow and winter cold hunters on that thread with what I said about the recent Asian snow cover growth in the last few days with something of a setback to come there too. We completely agree on the -ve anomalies over on the Canadian side of the Arctic and over most of Greenland (I've covered that in a number of recent posts and in my Greenland post - all on here). The problem is that the colder areas are already pretty well "iced up" with rather less growth possible. The ice free and open water areas of the Arctic are, unfortunately, mostly where the highest temps are likely to be during at the least the next week or so.

So, overall, I may be wrong but I strongly believe that we'll have a slow down in the recovery rate, more likely a pause and possibly even a short setback between now and Nov 6th/7th. I rarely like to look much further ahead than a week anyway. Things can change quite quickly of course. Let's keep monitoring it (which we will both do for sure) and then report back on here then. By which time the latest full NSIDC monthly update is likely to be available, which is always a fascinating read for us Arctic lovers. David

I told Malcolm @Blessed Weather back in August that I intended to do a post on global glacial ice and he posted a useful chart showing the cumulative glacial ice loss since 1980. I show part of his post below but please go to near the bottom of page 1 to find his full post.

On 8/28/2018 at 2:41 PM, Blessed Weather said:

Mountain Glaciers (1980–2017)

As you're planning a glacial ice extent post @Bring Back 1962-63 (David), I've posted this State of the Climate report here as well as in the Climate thread.

The graph below shows the mass balance of 37 reference glaciers each year since 1980 (bars), along with the total mass loss over time (red line).

SNIPPED (edited - with most of the text removed with the chart retained for reference)

Well, following a number of distractions on the hurricane, teleconnections and other forum threads (here and in the UK) as well as my more recent posts and updates on here including on Antarctica and Greenland, I am finally getting around to it!

We often hear news reports that the world's glaciers are retreating so quickly that most of them will disappear during the course of this century and many within the next 20 to 30 years. Some of this "may" be partly exaggerated by those at one extreme of the global warming and climate change debate and, at the other extreme, climate change deniers might argue that these are temporary or mostly naturally occurring changes. As I've said repeatedly on this thread, I want to endeavour to remove the hype and take a balanced and measured approach, so in this report I want to look at many of the facts about global glacial ice. I will draw data and information from quite a range of sources and this has been much harder than I would have thought. There is such an array of data and some very inconsistent analyses and quite a few misleading charts and statements. There are monitoring sites on many glaciers and ice sheets, satellite data is invaluable and some figures are best estimates based on photographic evidence. Some of these records are quite out of date but I have tried to pull together information based on measurements taken in the last few years but some data goes back to 2006 which I only use for comparison purposes. Therefore I shall include the date (alongside each fact or chart) where ever possible and when it's relevant. Whenever any of us find much more current data in place of the early data I will edit this post so that we can ensure that it is updated. In due course, a full update can be done. I feel that a good way to approach this now will be for me to run through a series of facts and figures which can be discussed in follow up posts by any of us.

Please note that in this post I am referring to all "glacial ice" which includes mountain and valley glaciers, tidewater glaciers,, ice caps, ice shelves and ice sheets (including Greenland and Antarctica).

About 10 percent of the Earth is covered in "land ice" with glacial ice, including glaciers, ice caps, and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica (NSIDC 2018).

This area is covered by about 15 million square kilometers of glacial ice.

To be termed a glacier it must be a minimum size of 0.1 square kilometers (or 25 acres).

99% of glacial ice is contained within vast ice sheets (also known as "continental glaciers") in the polar regions.

There are about 198,000 glaciers in the world, covering 726,000 square kilometers (June 2017).

It is difficult to identify and measure very small glaciers (from snow fields) which are under 0.1 square kilometers, these are called "glacierets".

If glacierets are included, the number of glaciers in the World would be around 400,000 but still only 1.4% of the World’s glacierised area.

The region with the most ice is the Antarctic and Subantarctic with 14 million square kilometers (including the main ice sheet).

The Antarctica ice sheets contains 30 million cubic kilometersof ice or about 90% of the Earth's total ice mass!

Antartica glaciers (excluding the main ice sheet) have an estimated 132,000 square kilometers of ice.

Second is the Canadian North Arctic with 104,000 square kilometers of glacial ice (excluding the ice caps there).

On the other hand, New Zealand has only 1,160 square kilometers of glacial ice.

44% of the World’s "glacierised" area (not sea ice) is in the combined Arctic regions and 18% is in Antarctica and Subantarctica (excluding the main ice sheet).

The Little Ice Age from about 1550 to 1850 with lower global temperatures than today saw most glaciers and ice sheets expand.

The period from 1850 to 1940, saw a warming global climate with a widespread retreat.

This was reversed temporarily between 1950 and 1980 as global temperatures cooled slightly.

Since 1980, a significant global warming has led to glacier retreat becoming increasingly rapid and some glaciers have disappeared altogether.

The glacier retreat into the Rockies, the Andes and the Himalayan ranges has the potential to affect water supplies in those areas.

An ice sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 square kilometers and is also known as "continental glacier".

The Antarctic ice sheet is effectively a glacier and has existed for at least 40 million years. Smaller glaciers break away from the main ice sheet.

Antarctic ice is up to 3 miles thick in some areas.

The largest individual glacier in the world is the Lambert-Fisher Glacier in Antarctica at about 250 miles long and 60 miles wide.

Ice Flow Map: This map produced in 2011 shows ice movement in 1996, 2000 & 2006. The colors indicate the speed of the ice flow: purple/red is fast; green is slower. This velocity map is derived from synthetic aperture radar and overlaid on a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) mosaic image of Antarctica.

Since 2006 Antarctica has seen increased snowfall and ice gains in some years - with increased ice flow in recent years, we need a later comparison.

Antarctic ice velocity in 2015 and the velocity change between 2008 and 2015. The mosaic of the Antarctic ice velocity (2015) from L8 panchromatic images from January 2015 to March 2016 is shown here overlaid on a MODIS mosaic of Antarctica (MOA)34,35. The magnitude of the ice velocity is coloured on a logarithmic scale and overlaid on gridded potential seawater temperature data (PTM) at a depth of 200 m from the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE). The velocity changes at grounding lines are calculated for 466 glaciers between 2015 and 2008 and are shown for 211 glaciers with high confidence levels (>2 σσ), which are coloured on a logarithmic scale. The names of selected glaciers and ice shelves are labelled. ‘A’ through ‘F’ delimits the six oceanic sectors. The details of ice velocity changes along grounding lines are presented in Table S1. The solid grey lines delineate major ice divides. This map was created using The Generic Mapping Tools version.

Antarctica's ice velocity is at its highest and accelerating the fastest close to the coast where ice bergs and shelves break off.

The Ross Ice Shelf and Ronne Ice Shelf and a few small ice shelves are moving much more quickly than the majority of the land mass ice.

2017 Map: Antarctica has 15 major ice shelf areas, and 10 of the largest appear in this map. Most of these ice shelves are glacier-fed, but ice formed from direct snowfall accumulation is a significant part of all permanent ice shelves.

Glaciers usually take centuries to develop but can retreat and melt much more quickly. Ice melt is seasonal and varies considerably from year to year.

Once glacial ice begins to break down, the interaction of melt water with the glacier's structure can cause increasingly fast melting and retreat.

Glaciers have white surfaces that reflect the sun's rays. As glaciers melt darker surfaces are exposed which absorb heat raising temperatures even more.

Greenland's ice sheet has an area of 1.7 million square kilometers, an average thickness of 2.3 kilometers and holds 7 percent of the world's freshwater.

If Greenland's glaciers and ice sheet melted completely, global sea level would increase by up to 7 meters (23 feet).

Contrary to popular belief Greenland's glacier retreat was much faster in the early 20th century than it is now (confirmed by my recent Greenland post)

Glaciers are found in 47 countries.

This figure shows the global distribution of glaciers. The diameter of the circle shows the area covered. The area covered by tidewater glaciers is shown in blue. The numbers refer to each RGI region (shown in the table below):

This table dates back to 2012 and ice extent figures have changed since then but it does give us a good idea of global ice distribution for comparative purposes.

Area-Altitude distributions for each of the RGI regions. The top figure is the distribution of regional glacierised area with altitude. The lower figure is the distribution of normalised area with normalised altitude. The dotted lines are idealised approximations; the triangle is for mountain glaciers, the curved line is for ice caps.

Source: Pfeffer et al., 2014.

Most of the World’s glaciers lie below 2000 m above sea level and most of the glacierised area is in the mid-elevation ranges (see charts above)

Antarctica has many low-lying tidewater glaciers near the coast has a large amount of low-lying ice.

In contrast the North Canadian Arctic has many ice caps on high-elevation plateaus.

The distribution of glacier area with altitude is important, as it means that different areas will respond to climate change in very different ways.

Glaciers store about 75 percent of the world's fresh water.

If all land ice melted, sea level would rise approximately 70 meters (230 feet) worldwide.

Current contributions of glaciers and ice sheets to global sea level rise. From the IPCC AR5 Working Group 1 (Ref. 13) 2014

During the maximum point of the last ice age, glaciers covered about 32 percent of the total land area.

In the United States, glaciers cover over 75,000 square kilometers, with most of the glaciers located in Alaska.

There are 616 officially named glaciers in Alaska and about 100,000 unnamed glaciers (estimated in November 2017 - far more than recorded previously)

Global glacial mass balance in the last fifty years, reported to the WGMS and NSIDC. The increasing downward trend in the late 1980s is symptomatic of the increased rate and number of retreating glaciers.

Over the past two billion years there have been at least five main ice ages. The last one spanned from 2.6 million years ago to the present day (see below)

That statement is hotly disputed and most climatologists say that the last ice age ended around 10,000 years ago.

It is believed the earth has seen much warmer periods between previous ices age than we have now and these lasted for up to 10,000 years.

The post has ended up much longer than I expected (sorry Geoff @33andrain) but I wanted to get the facts out there, so that many of us can debate them on this thread, the climate change thread or elsewhere. It presented one of my toughest challenges ever with so much conflicting data and reports around with huge inconsistencies. Frankly, there's enough material out there for anyone to support an argument at either extreme of the climate change and global warming debate. I have tried as hard as possible to retain a thoroughly balanced approach as well as my sanity while researching all of this. I have saved nearly 50 new papers and presentations related to this topic and added them to my store. I'll be very busy adding them steadily to the Research Portal. David

EDIT: Having quoted so many statistics it's possible (in fact likely) that I've made a few errors. I just spotted one which should have said 14 million square kilometers of ice rather than 14,000 - now that would be a pretty significant loss Please draw any errors to my attention - that would be greatly appreciated.

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Before I produce my analysis of the thickness and volume, I thought that I would like to finish of my review of the current ice extent, mainly by way of adding information.

Firstly a quick review of the last 2 or 3 days.

After a reduction in all the various monitoring platforms on the 28th, growth has now accelerated again. Gains recorded were over 200K Km2 on the NSIDC platform and around the 150K Km2 on Maisie and JAXA. It should be realised that at this time of the year, the increase is normally around 95 -110K Km. The growth still appears to be continuing in the last 24 hours at high rates.

The latest figure from JAXA is presented -

It has now overtaken 2017, but more importantly it is still on an high growth trend. Now another 3 days of this and 2018 could well be in the middle of the 'pack' having then caught up with years like 2007, 2010 and 2011.

As we all know, ice is very fickle, and could well move down just as quickly as it moves up. So the above is not a prediction, but is quite possible.

I am not pretending that this is anything but a 'rapid' catch up after a very slow start, but it is notable, because this 'catch up' has occurred whilst the 2M temperature has averaged between +2.5C and +4.5C anomalies, according to Climate Reanalyser. Even today it still stands at up to +3.7C

So - How can this happen?

I have a theory as to what is happening but I will leave it for now.

Other points I would like to clarify is the relationship (in actual graphical terms), between the models.

I tend to use Maisie as it is the most reactive, as described in my previous post.

Other (and I think very good - if not better), is this chart from ASIF user Aluminium , which shows the rapid ice build up (and decline) in a real time fashion. I am not certain whether the graphics will work on here, but if it doesn't then click and open it in a new window, and it should then work OK.

Period 27 - 31st October

I think it shows clearly where the ice is changing in real time mode (assuming that the graphic works).

It shows all ice types and therefore picks up on 'new, slush and Nilas,etc' and this shows up as a difference from the more conventional JAXA and NSIDC products. It seems to mirror Maisie.

As an example I show a similar graphic from more conventional sources such as DMI (also applies to JAXA and NSIDC).

The following is an ice thickness map (for the initial date in the above graphic in case the graphic does nor work) , but it seems to follow the graphics and extents of say the ADS Vishop presentation service.

So I will be using the most reactive tools in order to get the latest trends and feautures of ice growth (or decline).

This will clearly show many different trends. The job I set myself is to spot any pertinet changes early, without looking too foolish!

MIA (UK) Dave

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After a reduction in all the various monitoring platforms on the 28th, growth has now accelerated again. Gains recorded were over 200K Km2 on the NSIDC platform and around the 150K Km2 on Maisie and JAXA. It should be realised that at this time of the year, the increase is normally around 95 -110K Km. The growth still appears to be continuing in the last 24 hours at high rates.

This will clearly show many different trends. The job I set myself is to spot any pertinet changes early, without looking too foolish!

MIA (UK) Dave

Also in reply to my query on Kara in the previous posts.

After the drop of 60K Km2 when I was posting my first posts, it increased by 82K Km2 the next day, and this morning it looks to have grown by a much larger amount. The graphics have been updated but not the actual data as yet.

After the drop of 60K Km2 when I was posting my first posts, it increased by 82K Km2 the next day, and this morning it looks to have grown by a much larger amount. The graphics have been updated but not the actual data as yet.

Dave (MIA UK)

A further quick update from the last 2 days....

On Maisie, Kara has increased by a further (+42K) and (+19K).

Whilst total ice has increased by 392K Km2.

So the pace of ice refreeze has not yet reduced, and we are now above the average for the 2010 decade. but rapidly catching up with the pack.

As the ESS is within 200K of being full and Laptev is about 400K away, it will be up to Kara to keep up the freezing momentum.

Will it do this?

The fact that we were last 3 weeks ago, and are now heading into the 'upper' reaches shows how volatile ice can be.

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I am finally getting around to producing my review of thickness and volume and I will be using the just produced data on PIOMAS as published on the ASIF.

I have discussed extents in my few previous posts. Basically the message is that there is some small reasons to be slightly less pessimistic. (I am a half full glass type of person). So where to start.? I am intending to concentrate on recent events as I feel that we all acknowledge the events of the last 30 -40 years and BB has described them in full detail. So I will start with the sea ice thickness and volume maps of DMI, since they are produced daily and have a reasonable graphical interface. This is the graph for this year - Compared to the one for 12 months ago. Now as can be seen the ice is more advanced this year in the 'west', but not so in the 'east'.(the Russian waters). Further more the total volumes are not that different due to the gains made over the last few days. We are in practice about 0.3 K Km3 lower, but it will soon be eliminated. (probably). Study of the detail of the central ice pack of the DMI maps shows little difference, but there is a more pronounced portion of 3.5Metre to 4Metre ice this year. I believe that this is significant as it represents the first substantial thickness of ice actually in this area for quite a while (5 years), back to 2013. There was some in 2015, but this was counterbalanced by a huge area of thin ice next to it across the pole.. (see below). By way of interest this followed a virtual absence of thick ice over the pole in 2014.

So why do I think this years thick ice is significant? Well I would like to show a series of charts from the last ice year. showing the evolution of this 'patch'

and on to the beginning of march (the SSW period) - It clearly shows how this ice 'developed' during last year stretching out from the Russian coastline to 'embrace' it. (These effects can be seen in detail by accessing the chart and scanning through them by day or month). A month late and the effect of the SSW is obvious - Now you can see the effect of the SSW on the ice thickness, in the sudden bulge in ice volume at the start of March and further on by 2 months and we have - Now this resembles the 'lion rampant' - for non UK viewers this is the emblem on much UK coinage and on the England football and cricket shirts - so recognisable, If I carry on through the melt season we come to this - Clearly melting out , but still a patch of presumably thicker ice in its position. It does not seem to have moved very far. Which could be a factor this year.

Lastly, and showing the end of the melt season - You can still see the outline of the 'lion' in thicker ice. This seems to have survived the melt season, and is now thickening up rapidly again. So why have I spent some time explaining it all?

Well it shows -

1) That multi year ice is still being produced.

2) Looking back at previous years it is obvious why we had reducing multi year ice. (eg 2014 and 2015)

3) That the ice suddenly thickened dramatically during the SSW.

To me it is obvious that it is still possible that we could get a recovery in multiyear ice, despite the higher temperatures now in the Arctic. I produce the multi year thickness chart offered up by BB … It shows the dramatic 'drop' of the ice in the early teens. Could it be that in the last 2 years, that the 2 year old ice is starting to recover? I will leave it for now (have been called out!) but I will come back to these points later.. Dave (MIA UK) To Be Continued.

SNIPPED (CHARTS REMOVED AND TEXT ABBREVIATED TO SAVE SPACE)

Please note: For those wishing to follow the sequence of posts referenced, Dave (MIA) competed his full post (and edited it) after I had responded with this post and that appears "below" this one.

Thank you Dave (MIA) - this is a wonderful analysis and this Arctic thread is all the better for your excellent contributions. I can only reply briefly right now as I have an extremely busy business week ahead (already started) and will have little time for weather activities all week (unfortunately).

Firstly, as I said before, we are not in any disagreement over the rapid ice expansion during the last 3 weeks or so and I love respectful debates like this as it can throw up some angles that one has not considered fully before. All I have been doing is suggesting (with some good reason) that we are likely to see a slow down, pause or setback in the re-freeze - I sincerely hope that I'm wrong and only time will tell. I'll review this again around next weekend - that is to focus on the changes by then and to revisit the 2m surface temps in particular and you seem to like to do this every day or two

I am also at least "a glass half full" guy - in fact I like to inject optimism in many of my posts but I try to ignore my personal preferences (for at least a 1960s type of Arctic profile to return) in order to take a balanced approach so that I can keep an open mind and examine all the facts (not that I'm saying that you do not do this too). I apply this principle even more strongly to the climate change/global warming debate. You may not have seen my latest post on the "33" climate change thread (link to thread below by clicking on the chart):

Please note that for some reason my first post shows in the link chart above (perhaps as it's the one at the top of a page) but I added one this week further down. Well you know I have recently posted on Antarctica, Greenland and Global Glacial Ice and this is all land ice which is so much more important than sea ice in terms of sea levels rising (or not) but they are equally important in terms of future warming (or cooling) trends. In that post there, I highlighted the good news in Greenland in 2017 and particularly in 2018 and how the climate change protagonists have put out an incredible amount of misleading data. The deniers also do that when stats don't suit them and the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. My long posts on Antarctica (which has nearly 91% by volume of all the global land ice) showed that things are very different down there with increased snowfall (as in Greenland in 2018) helping to maintain the net amount of ice. That does not mean that there are not problems going forward. I intend to report on the tundra and the melting permafrost regions and on methane gas release quite soon. Again, this is not always "all bad news" but I'll explain all that in my post.

Returning to your ice "age" and "thickness" analysis where you say "to be continued" (which I'll look forward to). I like to monitor it as you do throughout the year as it's so important going forward in terms of future melt seasons and overall longevity of Arcitc sea ice. I do, however, like to take a really close look twice a year just as NSIDC do. This is to coincide with both the times of maximum and minimum annual ice extent. The former tells us how much new multi-year ice has grown (0 to 1 year , 1 to 2 year etc) and the latter tells us almost exactly how much multi year ice remains. I copy one of my recently posted charts just to make several more comments:

This was produced very close to the time of the 2018 overall minimum Arctic sea ice extent. Statistically, what a few readers may not realise or bear in mind (you and I and many who follow this closely will do of course) is that as we lose the really old ice (5 years +) then there is likely to be more much younger ice. During each re-freeze season (and, just for a few seconds, ignoring trends and other factors like circulation patterns, SSTs and adjacent Arctic regional land surface temps - which are all so important) with more open water there is a larger area of ocean that can potentially freeze over. Any remaining 1 year+ multi year ice will thicken during the re-freeze. This is why, while we have seen a worrying decline in older ice (5 year+ and 4 year+), the 3 year + has remained almost unchanged with only small year to year variations but there is not much of it anyway, while the 1 and 2 year old+ ice has increased very slightly. None of the trends are at all even with some quite significant year to year changes. Interestingly, in 2018 we have seen even more 4+ and 5+ year old ice melt as well as 1+ ice but a significant increase in both 2+ and 3+ year old ice (more below on that).

This can be explained quite rationally and almost for the same reasons that apply to Greenland and north east Canada land ice. We have seen below or well below 2m surface temp anomalies over the land areas for prolonged periods throughout 2018 in complete contrast to the rest of the Arctic region. We have also seen an extraordinary amount of snowfall in both the winter and summer months in that side of the Arctic. The fresh white snow cover has produced strong albedo effects on many days - something that's so important in the summer to reflect well over 85% of the sun's rays rather than the areas (with melting and darker cover) absorbing more heat. We did have that period of Siberian forest fires and a smoke plume which helped with blotting out some of the sunshine and we did not see the potential downside with ash deposits darkening the ice sheet (I posted on that event on page 1 of this thread). In any event we already have seen in recent years that most of the older ice that remains is largely on the Canadian side of the Arctic with many islands there too assisting with that. Meanwhile, the much more open ocean towards the Siberian/Russian side and especially the waters on the Atlantic side have seen the most net melting in recent years, especially the Kara and Barents Seas. This year, in particular, they have been joined by the Bering Sea which I've highlighted as the most worrying factor in terms of the 2018 re-freeze season. This was largely due to anomalously high NPAC SSTs pushed up by some of those super typhoons and a very active WPAC cyclone season overall.

It is no coincidence that the ice that has rapidly formed in the Kara Sea for example, is extremely thin and still largely broken - ie: not yet a full extension of the thick ice sheet but it is getting there (unless this potential pause or setback occurs). That region will be particularly vulnerable to 2m surface temps (quite apart from the longer term struggles with the +ve SST anomalies. Let's hope that northern Siberian temps fall back again soon (I'll take another look at them in my report next weekend). We need a good feed of deep dense cold air from the usual Siberian "freezer" to help with the re-freeze and assist in thickening the ice sheet closer to the coast there. The Bering Sea is a different matter altogether. With vast areas of open water, 2m surface temps often above 0c (with 10c to 20c +ve anomalies for periods) this may take many more weeks to re-freeze and the main ice sheet in the centre of the Bering Sea actually retreated slightly recently - as shown on your excellent animated chart from your recent post (for anyone who missed that - Dave helpfully provided a link and you can view the animations and study the recent changes). What we need is a combination of the following: The land temps to fall. Favourable circulation patterns with the winds blowing from the land areas or at least from the pole side of the Bering Sea off the existing ice sheet to cut off the flow of extremely warm waters from the NPAC - with the WPAC typhoon season drawing to an end, at least further north, we then need to look to a weaker and favourable jet stream pattern. Then the ice can build across from the pole side and out from the coastal areas and fringes. Being much more land-locked on the Pacific side, the Bering Sea "normally" freezes up pretty quickly - so we just need the process to get going and then a rapid catch up is still likely. I know that it was even worse at this stage last year (and in several recent years) but those NPAC SSTs were not so high and the 2m surface temps fell to rather lower levels during November - so we need this to happen in 2018 too (hopefully).

Given the colder conditions on the Canadian side, there is a better than average chance of ice thickening substantially there (something you'll be reporting on shortly) and then 2019 may well see an increase in ice surviving for 1 year+. Not just a glass more than half full but we need the contents of that glass to freeze over too Finally, as I already hinted at, may I request that you pull out a few charts (similar to the ones that you just posted) from the last couple of years to match as closely as possible the min and max ice extents (which varies so much in timing from year to year). Overall, I'm thrilled that we have seen such a rapid refreeze and really only 2012 in recent years has seen such a sustained strong recovery (but that was from that record low summer extent). Again the circulation patterns were pretty key drivers of both the record melting and the rate of recovery. If we can see a good re-freeze (eventually) and those colder Canadian/Greenland temps persist and even expand and we have a weaker jet (quite possible if we see a "weak" El Nino but not a super El Nino like in 2015 which brought those high SSTs into the Arctic) on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides then we might sea those ridiculously high SST anomalies start to fall back. Not impossible but perhaps just wishful thinking right now. David

My children and Grandchildren were returning from a holiday (in France), and had broken down on their way home on the motorway. I went to get them home. I also had no time to do a spelling check..so again I apologise.

SNIPPED - most of this "incomplete" post has been deleted as the full "continuous" version has now been competed and appears immediately below this post

Please note: My incomplete post originally appeared above David's (Bring Back 1962-63) post and he replied to that (above) before I deleted it and the full version now appears immediately below. Many of the points I raised were discussed in David's reply post (above) which followed my original entry of my deleted part post.

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I am finally getting around to producing my review of thickness and volume and I will be using the just produced data on PIOMAS as published on the ASIF.

I have discussed extents in my few previous posts.

Basically the message is that there is some small reasons to be slightly less pessimistic. (I am a half full glass type of person)..

So where to start.?

I am intending to concentrate on recent events as I feel that we all acknowledge the events of the last 30 -40 years and BB has described them in full detail.

So I will start with the sea ice thickness and volume maps of DMI, since they are produced daily and have a reasonable graphical interface.

This is the graph for this year -

Compared to the one for 12 months ago

Now as can be seen the ice is more advanced this year in the 'west', but not so in the 'east'.(the Russian waters).

Further more the total volumes are not that different due to the gains made over the last few days.

We are in practice about 0.3 K Km3 lower, but it will soon be eliminated. (probably)

Study of the detail of the central ice pack of the DMI maps shows little difference, but there is a more pronounced portion of 3.5Metre to 4Metre ice this year.

I believe that this is significant as it represents the first substantial thickness of ice actually in this area for quite a while (5 years), back to 2013.

There was some in 2015, but this was counterbalanced by a huge area of thin ice next to it across the pole.. (see below). By way of interest this followed a virtual absence of thick ice over the pole in 2014.

So why do I think this years thick ice is significant?

Well I would like to show a series of charts from the last ice year. showing the evolution of this 'patch'.

and on to the beginning of march (the SSW period) -

It clearly shows how this ice 'developed' during last year stretching out from the Russian coastline to 'embrace' it.

(These effects can be seen in detail by accessing the chart and scanning through them by day or month).

A month later and the effect of the SSW is obvious -

Now you can see the effect of the SSW on the ice thickness, in the sudden bulge in ice volume at the start of March.

and further on by 2 months and we have -

Now this resembles the 'lion rampant' - for non UK viewers this is the emblem on much UK coinage and on the England football and cricket shirts - so recognisable,

If I carry on through the melt season we come to this -

Clearly melting out , but still a patch of presumably thicker ice in its position. It does not seem to have moved very far.

Which could be a factor this year.

Lastly, and showing the end of the melt season -

You can still see the outline of the 'lion' in thicker ice.

This seems to have survived the melt season, and is now thickening up rapidly again.

So why have I spent some time explaining it all?

Well it shows -

1) That multi year ice is still being produced from the 1st and 2nd year ice.

2) Looking back at previous years it is obvious why we had rapidly reducing multi year ice. (eg 2014 and 2015), as there was no ice capable of surviving the refreeze in the Central Arctic.

3) That the ice suddenly thickened dramatically during the SSW.

To me it is obvious that it is still possible that we could get a recovery in multiyear ice, despite the higher temperatures now in the Arctic.

I copy the multi year ice thickness chart from David's post (where he replied to my incomplete post above this post)

It shows the dramatic 'drop' of multi year ice in the noughties and early teens.

This total ice thickness, extent and volume loss, was clearly associated with the loss of this multi-year ice.

Last year the green and blue portions of the graph increased. (i.e. 2 and 3 year ice). My assumption/belief is that it is the caused by the increase in thickness in the central polar region.

This ice has not been as easily melted out in a period of refreeze and the early signs in the 2018 season are that it is increasing rapidly again.

Other factors are clearly at work -

1) This year (2018) has seen relatively benign conditions in the Arctic, with long periods of benign low pressure and relatively weak anti-cyclonic conditions. Only an occasional deeper low crossed the polar cap in July/August, and did not seem to cause too much disturbance to the ice.

2) The cyclone of 2013 obviously caused a massive drop at that stage and resulted in the atrocious ice conditions in the central Arctic in 2014. This may happen again at some stage.

3) The advection of warm air into the Arctic is interesting.

a) It was the relatively 'warm air advection' (WAA) into the Arctic stratosphere in February 2017 (the SSW) that led to the massive cold outbreak in Europe and also resulted in the extremely rapid ice volume increases in early March.

b) On the other hand an anticyclone centred over Aalska, Bering (or the Yukatan) seems to pull in massive amounts of warm air at low level, and causes rapid ice melt in most of the 'Eastern' Arctic.

c) Warm air has been pushed into the Western Arctic for that last 30-35 years through the North Atlantic via the North Atlantic jet-stream and ocean currents. This has clearly resulted in the ice pack around Svalbard being despatched to the North and East, impacting Barents dramatically, and other closer sea areas as well.

There are signs that the Atlantic Ocean Oscillation (AMO) is now moving into a negative mode.

In the UK we have seen it in the lessening of the SW winds and frequent intrusions of NW winds instead.

This would mean less heat arriving in the Western Arctic.

d) There is evidence that the volume of ice being despatched from the Arctic by its 'overflow' route of the Fram Strait is diminishing.

This (if one follows the ice movement) seems to have been caused by a reduction of cross polar flow. The ice is not moving anti-clockwise around the basin (across North Greenland) and down into the Fram area, as was the case several years ago. Indeed there have been times when the ice movement is clockwise - follow the 'lion rampant' for its movement last year, and you will see it turn to the north for some periods.

The following chart shows the transport of ice through Fram - (thanks to ASIF)

It is possible to see that it actually reversed during the SST in February/March timeframe, and has remined very low for the last 2 years.

and finally - (but not least)

e) the impact of Global Warming in the area, and its associated impact on the ice.

Much has already been written on this.

The only thing I would point out is that despite average anomaly temperature figures of +(3.0 - 5.0C) for weeks on end this refreeze season that the ice still has achieved a rapid recovery, presumably because of the benign conditions up there, and once more presumably a certain temperature was reached..

or maybe it is possible that we are seeing some unexplained feed-back effects.

All the factors above have, at different times, had differing affects and which one is dominant has been it seems constantly changing...

particularly over the last 2 years.

The Arctic is clearly a very complex environment.

There is much that we still need to understand.

Dave (MIA UK)

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@Bring Back 1962-63 (David)'s posts on sea ice thickness, age and the various weather patterns bringing about the multiple patterns we've seen in recent years are in my opinion (and I'm sure many others') an excellent round-up of the situation, the likes of which I've not seen even on the dedicated ASI forum. Some quality contribution from MIA UK (another David ) as well, on similar areas of the subject.

It's a relief (but not surprising) that at least some multi-year ice is still able to be produced; now we just need some to stay within regions that see ice-supportive conditions for more than 2-3 years - something sorely missing in the past decade. Odds are we should gain some 4-year ice to go into next melting season with so that's something. Also - I've been wondering about FRAM export and whether it's really reduced or just appears that way due to the ice melting out further north. Not sure how one goes about assessing that to be honest!

It's going to be a really big deal what happens over the coming 5 months in the Pacific and Atlantic-side waters that have higher salinity then ever previously observed. Should the ice struggle to achieve consistent coverage there until record-late (or at all) then the case for a slow-but-sure 'salinification' of the Arctic will gain strong support. This being something to track closely in the freezing season while we wait to see whether any melting seasons are able to 'out-force' the negative feedback of increased ocean-atmosphere moisture transport and bring about a strongly melt-supportive May, June or July (the latter two being the most significant)... and whether the observed fragility of the ice will (in such a scenario) actually mean that we see unprecedented extent and/or area loss rates as a result.

Speaking of fragility, I'm reminded of some posts on the ASI forum some months ago that discussed the possibility that the more mobile state of the ice as a result of it being more fragmented and allowing greater wave penetration is resulting in newly-formed ice being less 'pure' with higher saline content than was typical in decades past, making it more vulnerable to mechanical breakdown in particular. Another fascinating aspect to explore perhaps?

Well first of all hat's off to Dave @Midllands Ice Age (UK). Rather than a pause, the re-freeze has actually continued at an impressive rate. Nevertheless, there are still various concerns. I'll comment below each chart.

Please refer to the Arctic map in my introductory post to this thread which shows all the Arctic regions and seas. The overall Arctic sea ice extent has recovered strongly but is still below average in many parts, especially in the Bering Sea (almost no ice), the Chukchi Sea, the Barents Sea and part of the Kara Sea. The exceptions are in the Canadian Arctic (fully frozen) and Baffin Bay (west of Greenland) as well as in Hudson Bay and the Gulf of St Lawrence which are starting to freeze over rather earlier than in many recent years (although 2017 was an early re-freeze for Hudson Bay too).

Much of the main ice sheet is approaching 90% to 100% ice concentration.

This map shows us the different ages of the ice. The brown area is the ice that has survived for at least 1 year. Green shows the thickest "new" ice, pink is medium thickness and dark blue is the thinnest, often referred to as "nilas". Here's a link to the types of new ice, how it forms and the terms used:

This map shows how quickly ice extent recovered during October and this continued into November.

It's normal for there to be pauses or setbacks in the rate of recovery during the main re-freeze season. So far, 2018 has seen the fastest continuous recovery since early October compared to any of the previous 7 years. Only 2012, which saw the record minimum extent, comes close to matching 2018.

Unfortunately, all these recent years are below or well below the 1979 to 2006 mean.

The good news is that much of the Arctic has cooled down significantly in the last 2 weeks.

The Canadian Arctic and Greenland have been persistently colder than most of the rest of the Arctic region. Many parts of Siberia and northern Russia have cooled off more than forecast (just 2 weeks ago) which is probably one of the main reasons why the re-freeze has continued apace.

The 2m surface temp anomalies for this month to date are actually not as bad as those at the time I last posted this chart (in my post on October 20th on page 2 of this thread). Back then the Arctic Ocean was running at +4.012c; the whole of the Arctic region (66N-90N) was at +3.532c; the sub Arctic and Arctic (60N-90N) was at +2.709c and only Greenland was colder at -1.19c.

This chart shows the predicted anomalies for T+!68 or a week from now. The cooling trend is expected to continue over almost all the Arctic and sub Arctic region and over the ocean with temps returning to closer to normal with only Greenland becoming much warmer. Given that temps there will be in the -20c to -40c range, a + 4.45c anomaly is not too much of a concern. This was average regional anomalies but we can see the actual distribution. North east Canada is going to become even colder and a slightly colder than average area extends across (and to the south of) the pole and into Russia. Even the very high anomalies in the Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea are expected to ease down to some extent.

This chart (from the Zach Labe site) puts the current warmth into context. There was a period in mid summer when 2018 was running just below the 1958-2002 mean but it has been running at close to record warmth since then. The thin lines cover the range from 1958 to 2016. The predicted further cool off should help to to take 2018 back into the range seen in most of the recent years but still slightly above the long term average.

This map shows the Arctic region land mass snow cover anomalies (excluding Greenland which is not shown but actually has near to its highest levels of year to date new snow cover since 1972). The better news here is that most of the regions close to the Arctic Ocean now have close to (grey) or above average (greens) snow cover. Continuous deep snow cover plus generally lower land mass surface temps should assist with the re-freeze but there is one more important ingredient....

...SSTs. The areas of open water below 0c have expanded steadily (as they should do approaching winter). Sea water usually starts to freeze at SSTs below -1.5c depending upon salinity and circulation patterns/wind strength.

The anomalies are actually improving too! There are still those exceptionally high small areas with anomalies of +6c to +8c and those in the Bering Sea are still very high (but falling). The overall area of +2c has declined and much of the far North Atlantic is actually below average. Is this a sign that "if" we see a continuing weaker jet stream and disorganised tropospheric PV plus favourable circulation patterns that SSTs might fall back to less high anomalies? In a future post, I'll compare these anomalies to those since 2014 (just prior to the super El Nino that pumped in those warm waters) and examine the trend much more closely.

Overall, the news is not nearly as bad as I was expecting - perhaps I should say slightly less worrying than it might have been. If the re-freeze can continue at a decent rate, it is possible that 2018/19 could turn out to see greater ice extent than in most of the last decade. Things can easily change for the worse again with pauses and setbacks still possible but not for the next week or two at least. David

This really is an update from me, but one in which I would like to look at what has happened over the 8 -10 years in more detail, in order to see to see what has caused the major impact to multiyear ice.

First of all the current extent (and area) continues to improve (relative to recent years) apace.

Kara is still filling in quickly, keeping the NH daily gains quite high, and now (despite my, and others concerns) the Arctic perimeter areas such as Bering, Chukchi and very recently Barents appear to be gaining momentum, and keeping the comparative rates for 2018 refreeze looking very good.

From being last 6 weeks ago the extent seems to be somewhere between 8th and 10th depending upon the measure and ice service chosen.

Hudson and Baffin as previously discussed are now in full ice growth mode, and Hudson could fill up very quickly now.

Can the ice continue on this more rapid growth path? At the moment the refreeze is at similar rate to these reported in the 20th century. though clearly not in such a solid position.

I will not dwell too much on the above as other forums deal with this on a day to day situation.

What I wanted to do in this post was to use the same techniques I used for displaying the changes to ice thickness in the last year in my previous post, which clearly showed the ice development to be 'stronger' in the Arctic above 80 degrees this year, and therefore for its possible effects for the future of the pack.

By examining the last 10years it is possible to see why we have ended up with the poor state of multi year ice we have today.

First of all I have chosen a pretty random recent date - 15th November 2018 - as the current position.

As can be seen the area of increased ice thickness I discussed in my previous post is still enlargening and becoming also thicker. Also note the increased yellow in the Arctic circle.

The Arctic now looks reasonably healthy in the central region, (the vital area for multi year ice to survive), although not so good in Barents (where ice never survives in the summer), and Bering is now about average for the last 10 years (as you will see), and Hudson and Baffin are above average.

Going back to 2017, and further back you will see how the ice has fluctuated over the last 3 years (back to 2015), but has never been 'thick' in the Central/East areas.

2017 - much larger 'deep blue' areas in the central, but a thick area up in the ESS, which was the precursor for the

central ice in 2018.

Bering, Hudson, Baffin worse than this year, but slightly stronger in Barents, and around Svalbard.

2016 - much worse than 2018 in all areas!

2015 - similar extents to this year with a 'nice' patch in the Central patch of thick ice, but also with a massive areas of very shallow ice right over the pole, which appears to be the ' left over and not recovered ice' from the poor state of the ice in the central area in 2014.

2014 - Very strong ice over the Greenland coastline (last of the real multi year ice), but a huge 'open' gulf on the

Siberian side, which would allow rapid melt the following year (2015 summer), but the extents, particularly around Barents are looking good, although Bering is 'suspect' and wide open.

2013 - Looks very similar to 2018 in extent terms, but with a much larger amount of multiyear ice in and around the

Central Arctic pack

2012 - Large portions of thick multi year ice in the Greenland central regions, but Barents is a car crash, and Hudson

and Baffin are also down.

2011 - Extents lower than todays, but the central ice looks very 'stable'.

2008 - A very poor Central ice pack following on from the 2007 rapid drop, but the extents seem to be similar to today.

2007 -Extent lower in all areas, and a massive 'hole' has eaten into the ice from the Bering side.

2006 - Similar extents as compared with today apart from Hudson and Baffin, which were much lower in extent.

So. it looks as if 2 major events hit the central ice pack and both occurred from the side of the Bering Sea.

One in 2006-2007 and the other in 2013-2014.

Now we know that the great Arctic cyclone hit the ice in 2013 -2014 year, and this appears to have caused the chaos in the 2015 -16 winter seasons, but a recovery seems to be taking place at the moment.

Did we have a similar event in 2006 - 2007?

In each instance, however, the ice seemed to be recovering. It does not appear that temperature is the defining factor for the ice regrowth. It is clearly very important, but the ice over the last few years has shown 'regrowth' (when it is allowed to), despite high Arctic temperatures.

These two occurrences explain the precipitous drop in the multi year ice in the period of 2005-7, and again more recently, as seen in multi year ice graph above.

I think that it is asking too much for the ice to recover all its multiyear ice, as it possibly will require a spell of 10 -15 years without a major 'disaster' year.

To do this we will need either a cessation of AGSW(?), or a major change in the atmospheric patterns which have been driving 'ice melt' events into the Arctic, maybe even both.

However the Arctic does show signs of attempting to recover on each occasion, so perhaps all is not quite lost just yet!

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First off @Midllands Ice Age (UK) and @Bring Back 1962-63 Thank you for such a brilliant objective presentation on the subject. I will cont to look forward to the updates as they become available. Somewhere above one of you two briefly mentioned the direction from which the more fragmented ice is moving; however, one thing I did not see specifically mentioned throughout the 3 pages of incredible information is the "Beaufort Gyre". I have recently been reading about this and that there appears to be a delay in the periodic large scale reversal of the gyre on the order of several years. I've been following along with the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project headed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution which concluded in Sept.(http://www.whoi.edu/website/beaufortgyre/home) Im wondering what role the Beaufort Gyre's current state and potential large scale reversal has on the big picture.

Also on a separate topic, but not sure where to post it, Its been claimed that approx. 80% of the worlds volcanoes are located deep beneath the surface of the world oceans; many if not most of which are, simply stated, unexplored and poorly researched. I'm wondering if there is somewhere within 33&rains threads, and/or somewhere else, links to information/research into the roles(if any) of total magma output/volcanic activity occurring beneath the oceans surface and how or if they perhaps contribute to the overall large scale ocean currents (deep sea or surface) and perhaps consequently the SSTA patterns over time? ie: oscillations such as the AMO on the Atlantic side; PDO and perhaps even some influences on overall ENSO cycle frequencies and/or intensities in the Pac, and perhaps the IO dipole SSTA configurations to name a few? It appears that at least from some of my research into the topic, that the sun and sun spot cycles etc may play an important role on earthquake activity, and consequently changes in the movement of the earths liquid core.

Perhaps in a similar fashion to how the jet stream patterns at various levels of the atmosphere are driven by temp gradients horizontally between the northern latitudes and southern latitudes as well as vertically between the depths of the troposphere and stratosphere, the oceanic currents are driven in a not that dissimilar fashion in both a horizontal and vertical fashion with fluctuations in deep sea volcanic activity on the order or months, years, decades, and perhaps longer influenced by solar cycles and other more cosmic effects are a much more important drive in Oceanic SSTA effects than we currently know? I feel like there is a huge void in the research into the potential fluctuations in underwater volcanic activity combined with the more mundane but constant deep mid Atlantic ridge magma activity the role of which may get overlooked (combined with many other important atmospheric driving factors of course) in the big picture in driving ocean currents and perhaps larger time scale SSTA configurations/fluctuations. Again any links to information or just general discussion about the subject is greatly appreciated. Keep up the phenomenal work.

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First off @Midllands Ice Age (UK) and @Bring Back 1962-63 Thank you for such a brilliant objective presentation on the subject. I will cont to look forward to the updates as they become available. Somewhere above one of you two briefly mentioned the direction from which the more fragmented ice is moving; however, one thing I did not see specifically mentioned throughout the 3 pages of incredible information is the "Beaufort Gyre". I have recently been reading about this and that there appears to be a delay in the periodic large scale reversal of the gyre on the order of several years. I've been following along with the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project headed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution which concluded in Sept.(http://www.whoi.edu/website/beaufortgyre/home) Im wondering what role the Beaufort Gyre's current state and potential large scale reversal has on the big picture.

Also on a separate topic, but not sure where to post it, Its been claimed that approx. 80% of the worlds volcanoes are located deep beneath the surface of the world oceans; many if not most of which are, simply stated, unexplored and poorly researched. I'm wondering if there is somewhere within 33&rains threads, and/or somewhere else, links to information/research into the roles(if any) of total magma output/volcanic activity occurring beneath the oceans surface and how or if they perhaps contribute to the overall large scale ocean currents (deep sea or surface) and perhaps consequently the SSTA patterns over time? ie: oscillations such as the AMO on the Atlantic side; PDO and perhaps even some influences on overall ENSO cycle frequencies and/or intensities in the Pac, and perhaps the IO dipole SSTA configurations to name a few? It appears that at least from some of my research into the topic, that the sun and sun spot cycles etc may play an important role on earthquake activity, and consequently changes in the movement of the earths liquid core.

Perhaps in a similar fashion to how the jet stream patterns at various levels of the atmosphere are driven by temp gradients horizontally between the northern latitudes and southern latitudes as well as vertically between the depths of the troposphere and stratosphere, the oceanic currents are driven in a not that dissimilar fashion in both a horizontal and vertical fashion with fluctuations in deep sea volcanic activity on the order or months, years, decades, and perhaps longer influenced by solar cycles and other more cosmic effects are a much more important drive in Oceanic SSTA effects than we currently know? I feel like there is a huge void in the research into the potential fluctuations in underwater volcanic activity combined with the more mundane but constant deep mid Atlantic ridge magma activity the role of which may get overlooked (combined with many other important atmospheric driving factors of course) in the big picture in driving ocean currents and perhaps larger time scale SSTA configurations/fluctuations. Again any links to information or just general discussion about the subject is greatly appreciated. Keep up the phenomenal work.

You raise some very interesting questions. I have only read a little on the "Beaufort Gyre" but I do try to keep abreast of these types of research projects (I've been focusing more on Antarctica and Greenland recently). I started this thread so that we can examine all aspects of the Arctic, Antarctica, Greenland and global land, glacial and sea ice. So far, I've been trying to pull together as much of the facts as possible and we are just about ready to move onto more specialist matters. I've been studying the Arctic for over 40 years and I'm a very strong believer in taking an open minded and balanced view on climate change and would hope that we can get at the real facts and hold respectful debates on here. This is a truly vast subject - fascinating, exciting and worrying all at the same time.

Would you like to produce a fuller post on the Beaufort Gyre? You could kick off with the facts and data, then go through the work of the "Exploration Project" and then make various comments/ask further questions. I and several others will respond.

You then move onto other teleconnections. Some of these are directly related to the Arctic/Antarctica, some more indirectly related and some not so much. I also post regularly on the Teleconnections thread. Volcanism belongs on both threads. Just like solar activity, this has only been touched upon on the Tele thread so far. I plan to do posts on both these topics and on magnetism (partly linked to both of them) on the Tele thread within a month or two. Much sooner, I plan to do a post on here on Antarctica's volcanoes and volcanism, earthquakes and their impacts on ice stability.

There is quite a bit on the Tele thread already on ENSO, SSTs, the AMO and the IOD - not much yet on the PDO. Some of us (including myself) are truly fascinated in the oscillations, especially the longer term ones. The recent research into deep ocean currents (with the rapidly expanding network of mixed depth buoys) and the ocean floor deposit samples are now advancing our understanding at a great pace. It is now believed that the changes to the AMO start off deep in the southern oceans around (well off) Antarctica and these then upwell off Africa and may also impact on the AMOC (Gulf Stream). It would certainly make sense if these deep currents impacted on the Pacific in a similar way - not just the PDO but the PCO (the centennial oscillation). It is quite possible that these longer term oscillations work to quite specific time frames/cycles and may have some strong influences on "natural variability" and this is vitally important in terms of overall climate change and global warming matters.

You mention the whole atmosphere and a really specialised subject is understanding Atmospheric Angular Momentum (AAM). Rossby waves can propagate laterally, polewards from the tropics (and in conjunction with the the torques influence the path and strength of the jet stream), vertically right up into the stratosphere and even the mesosphere (and help to trigger major warming events and SSWs) and more recently discovered (although mentioned by Carl Rossby himself in his 1939 paper) downwards into the oceans and certainly influence near surface currents and possibly even deeper currents. This combination of factors is partly examined on both the Tele and Stratosphere threads but not yet the ocean current influences.

You mention research and 6 months ago my "Research Portal" idea became a reality. Together with Malcolm @Blessed Weather (who also posts on these specialist threads - esp the Arctic, Tele and Strat) and Zac @Snowy Hibbo (who started the Tele thread) we have built up an extensive store of papers and presentations - check out the index:

I have hundreds more to add and many of these are Arctic related.

Needless to say, time is a very precious commodity. I run a full time online business (not weather related) and spend much of my spare time on this forum. The portal work is never ending. I'm currently preparing an index for the Tele thread to list all the main posts under topic headings with direct links. I will do the same on this thread after that. I have so many posts that I wish to do and also get involved in various debates. I'm from the UK and also active on a forum over here.

I look forward to reading your contributions on all these specialist threads. If you know of anyone who has a specialist knowledge or interest in any of these topics, then why not invite them to get involved too. The more the merrier. If you have any papers that you feel should be added to the Research Portal, then please let us know - either on the thread(s), in the portal "Interactive Area" or by a PM. You would be credited with the entry. This applies to all members. David

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@Bring Back 1962-63 I appreciate the response for sure. Like you time is a precious commodity in my life these days. As a self proclaimed, above average weather enthusiast, I pursue advanced knowledge in all areas of the weather, from predicting potential winter storm or tropical entities in my neck of the woods, to a deeper understanding of the much bigger picture that governs the climate as a whole on this insignificant little spec of dust we call earth in what little spare time I have. I too am owner operator of a small business as well as father of two very active kiddos and husband to wonderful woman all of which takes up the majority of my daily life. Like you I enjoy the pursuit of the true understanding to the main drivers behind the current state of the climate in terms of both a short term time series and more long term time series, but in an objective unbiased fashion. Unfort climate discussions are mired in BS and the avg every day person typically and blindly takes their stance based on either their specific political affiliation and/or based on which side of the debate has the loudest and most force feeding of an idea until you accept it and eat it readily type approach. Like medicine understanding the weather and climate can fall into 3 basic categories:

a) the things we understand and claim to know as facts

b)The things we almost fully understand, and

c) the things we are still are yet to understand fully.

And also like medicine as we continue the pursuit of the things we almost fully understand and the things we are yet understand, we realize the things we thought we knew for sure were in fact wrong and fall back into the category of we think we understand or are yet to understand.

The "butterfly effect", if you will, or the understanding of the interactions between depths of the oceans, atmosphere, cosmos, and now humans is what really intrigues me. There is a ton of crossover in the general way of thinking and approach to the subject from my professional life and career and my deep passion and hobby that is weather and climate. Medicine and physiology is very similar in that what happens in one area can have both direct and indirect or major or minor effects on other areas. A dysfunction of the endocrine system, for example, can not only directly affect other areas of the endocrine system, but also indirectly have either positive or negative effects(depending on ones perspective) on other aspects of the body simply stated. The analogy I use in an attempt to get a laymen to understand the challenges in medicine is to describe it like an intricate dance. Lets use the endocrine system as our example once again. Take a single hormone in the body and the bodies ability to regulate its levels and pretend its a couple on a dance floor doing a waltz. If the couple does not move in perfect harmony with one another then there is the potential for them to step on each others feet and stumble around the dance floor instead of a smooth coordinated dance. Now lets throw all the other hormones the body produces on the same dance floor. Not only do we have to coordinate the movements of a given individual couple; now the challenge is to coordinate the smooth rhythm and timing of many couples on the same dance floor. If one couple begins to stumble we now run the risk of that couple bumping into another couple, who might bump into another couple, and so on. Now if we are looking at the dance floor from an objective vantage point what we see are multiple dance partners stumbling around a dance floor. The questions asked are where did it start? Did more than one couple stumble at the same time on separate sides of the floor or did one couple start a chain reaction? Where do we begin to fix it. Which couple(s) do we get back on track first that will maximize our chances to get everyone back in sync again?

IMHO this basic analogy can apply to weather. When looking at the complex interplay and both direct and indirect effects between Oceans, atmosphere, sun, human emissions, and the cosmos like is being done on this forum, its easy to see just how ridiculous it is to think that us silly little humans have it all figured out.

Anyway My apologies for the tangent as this in no way applies to the past, present or future state of the arctic. Here is where I finally real it back into the topic at hand... I am a mere weather enthusiast, so some of the technical data regarding the Beaufort Gyre project specifically goes beyond my scope of understanding. That said I will do my best to contribute when or where I can. I just love getting the wheels of my mind turning thinking about all of it. Thanks again for a brilliant set of minds on this site.

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First off @Midllands Ice Age (UK) and @Bring Back 1962-63 Thank you for such a brilliant objective presentation on the subject. I will cont to look forward to the updates as they become available. Somewhere above one of you two briefly mentioned the direction from which the more fragmented ice is moving; however, one thing I did not see specifically mentioned throughout the 3 pages of incredible information is the "Beaufort Gyre". I have recently been reading about this and that there appears to be a delay in the periodic large scale reversal of the gyre on the order of several years. I've been following along with the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project headed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution which concluded in Sept.(http://www.whoi.edu/website/beaufortgyre/home) Im wondering what role the Beaufort Gyre's current state and potential large scale reversal has on the big picture.

Post snipped to save bandwidth…. (but see my next post)

Re Paragraph 1 above...

I was about to come back this week with more detail on two of the points that you raise.

(yes it was me who suggested that maybe something has changed in the general arctic with regard to the movement of the ice in the Arctic).

First of all can I say what a fantastic mine of information is contained within the link you provided. It details not only the Beaufort Gyre details but the research being carried out in the Arctic over the last 30 - 40 years. It also provides a history of man's attempts to 'conquer'. and understand the Polar environment, and it contains many scientific references. It certainly would benefit the portal if it is not there already.

My post supplying my reply to your query will again be based upon the DMI thickness charts...

If I can display todays data....

It may be necessary to 'zoom in' a bit on the area just to the North of Central Greenland.

There you can find a small bit of 'green' ice.

It is a small patch of thinner ice. Why is it of interest?

Well it has been around this area for the last several months. It has shown no sign of moving into Fram whilst the ice to the west of it tends to move towards Beaufort (and the gyre) .

I have already noticed and reported that Fram had virtually closed down since the SST in February.

Rather than showing all the reports can I ask that you access the DMI site and move back through the data using the 30 (or 1 day) buttons.

It is clear that the only ice moving into Fram this year has been that which originated around Svalbard, and as we all know that is not in plentiful supply at the moment.

Other years, with large export via Fram, show the ice movement anticlockwise from Beaufort along the North Greenland coast, (with only a small amount joining from Svalbard) and then out through Fram.

This process is described in the link that SROC supplied as being measured by the AOO (Arctic Ocean Oscillation) index.

Can I recommend that people read the section entitled Arctic Ocean Oscillation Index in the Results section.

The two movements are described as being caused by the Anticyclonic Circulation Regime (ACCR) and the Cyclonic Circulation Regime (CCR).

It seems as though we have been in a ACCR dominated flow for a few years (1997?).

I will copy in the Introduction section see the end of my post, but it is all worth reading.

Could it be that there is little more ice that can now be exported via FRAM under this clearly ACCR event? Whereas during CCR (with an anticlockwise momentum) events we can expect the movement of the ice in the Beaufort Gyre to be passed across and into Fram.

Conversely, during ACCR events the ice is 'at risk' of being melted out by any warm waters coming into the Bering Straits area. This year the sea temperatures in Bering have been falling quite quickly

and the latest report shows this - (from ASIF)

So quite a rapid temperature drop in the Chukchi and Bering area of about 2 - 3C.

So we appear, potentially, to be in a 'good' situation at the moment as regards ice export, but will it last?

I will close this post now and leave you with the reference to the Beaufort Analysis (from the linked report), and I will open a further post on the subject of subterranean activities in the Arctic Ocean.....

(c) Greenland Sea cyclone trajectories for 1949–2002 (this is fig. 2 from Sortenberg and Walsh [2008]).White dots indicate the start of each cyclone trajectory and the white and grey lines show two different paths identified by cluster analysis and well supporting SLP distributions corresponding to circulation regimes shown in (a) and (b), respectively. This means that annual SLP distribution patterns express statistics of cyclone counts—prevailing cyclone trajectories.

(e) First EOF mode (48% of the variance) of the annual sea surface height pattern.

(f ) AOO indices. The thick black line depicts the 5-year-running-mean time series of the AOO index derived manually following the approach of Proshutinsky & Johnson [1997] and definition provided above. Positive (blue bars) AOO indices correspond to years with ACCRs and negative (red) bars show cyclonic regimes. Coefficients of the annual first EOF mode of the simulated wind-driven sea surface heights as the 5-year running mean are shown as the blue solid line. GSA years are shown as shaded boxes.

(g) Spectra of the AOO calculated from the timeseries of the detrended annual AOO index from 1946 to 2013 using the Tukey window with band width 0.279 rad yr−1. The vertical blue bar denotes the 95% confidence interval of the peak with corresponding frequency ω =0.551 rad yr−1 (11.4 years).

Compared to the NAO and AO, the AOO index, defined on the basis of a wind-driven simulated sea-surface height field across the Arctic (Proshutinsly and Johnson, 1997) is a more Arctic-centric index. The index is a measure of the intensity and sense (clockwise/anticyclonic or counterclockwise/cyclonic) of the Arctic Ocean wind-driven circulation. Below, we explain the mechanisms regulating changes in the Arctic circulation regimes and environmental parameters at decadal time scales using this index. Over the period 1948-1996 the AOO has been shown to be the most appropriate index to capture variability in key Arctic environmental parameters (Proshutinsky et al., 1999; Polyakov et al., 1999; Overland, 2009).

Also on a separate topic, but not sure where to post it, Its been claimed that approx. 80% of the worlds volcanoes are located deep beneath the surface of the world oceans; many if not most of which are, simply stated, unexplored and poorly researched. I'm wondering if there is somewhere within 33&rains threads, and/or somewhere else, links to information/research into the roles(if any) of total magma output/volcanic activity occurring beneath the oceans surface and how or if they perhaps contribute to the overall large scale ocean currents (deep sea or surface) and perhaps consequently the SSTA patterns over time? ie: oscillations such as the AMO on the Atlantic side; PDO and perhaps even some influences on overall ENSO cycle frequencies and/or intensities in the Pac, and perhaps the IO dipole SSTA configurations to name a few? It appears that at least from some of my research into the topic, that the sun and sun spot cycles etc may play an important role on earthquake activity, and consequently changes in the movement of the earths liquid core.

Snipped to save bandwidth

With regard to the above topic of subterranean activity it has recently been identified that at least 2 volcanos appear to be active in the Barents Sea region.

The following Google earth graph indicates 2 areas with very abnormally high temperatures and also large amounts of CO2 and CH4 being discharged. Could the following have anything to do with polar ocean warming via both the ocean temperatures and AGW effect.?

It looks as if warm water is 'boiling/bubbling' to the surface in 2 locations around Svalbard.

This will prevent ice forming in these areas.

Examine the following Earth map showing ocean waves/currents and temperatures in the region.

Look at locations 77.95N and 5.48E for a 'mad' surface temperature of 19.4C, or even 75.89N and 31.04E where it reaches 10.1C.

In addition over on the ASIF thread they have been following a patch of revolving ice on the edge of the ice as it approaches the NE coast of Svalbard for a couple of years.

What we do not know is whether these features are relatively recent, or whether they have been active for some while and can hence be discounted.

Anyone know if the Google Earth has an 'archive' facility along with the Subterranean options?

Without doubt there are many underwater areas with magma and movement of the earth's crust beneath.

We know that there is a ridge running up through the Barents and up into the Arctic, it being the extension of the Icelandic mid Atlantic ridge.. It could well be that the 'weak solar' does have an effect, but there are people who know much more than I, and the above Google Map shows how 'neatly' the large volcano sits between the Atlantic jet current passing around Norway and the return current passing down the east coast of Greenland.

It clearly is an area where more research needs to be carried out.

I will perform and report a weekly review into the weekly current ice situation.... tomorrow.

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The Arctic sea ice has expanded throughout the last week, and is now (according to JAXA) in the 13th of the 14th during the period since 2004 in the satellite era.

The rapid ice growth has continued, mainly in the Hudson Bay and closely associated regions, whereas the regrowth elsewhere has been unremarkable, after the sudden bursts of growth in the ESS and Laptev 2 weeks ago, with Kara then following on behind.

The regrowth in Kara is now almost complete, and the attention will turn to the peripheral regions of Barents, Bering, Greenland, Baffin and the East Siberian Sea (ESS) for the next phase of growth.

I supply the latest JAXA data as to represent the current status - (from ASIF)

and for the ongoing charts -

The question that must be asked as whether or not we can continue with the ongoing melt rate over the next 4 weeks.

There are still signs that the Arctic is still cooling both inside the Arctic circle and outside (above 67 degrees) as measured by the DMI and Climate Reanalyser charts -

I must admit that I expect the rate to fall somewhat so that we end up somewhere in the 6th - 8th positions unless conditions change.

This will then hide the most remarkable recovery we have seen in Arctic Ice.

Could it be that the fact that the ice refused to refreeze for so long at the start of the season, enabled more heat to escape and hence result in a quicker refreeze?.

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Net weekly gain about 100K KM2, around 300K Km2 below the 2010 average for this period.

The last week has seen a reduction in the extreme cold over North America.

This has affected the rapid ice gains being registered in this area. Hudson has actually lost (-4K KM2) and Baffin(+20K Km2) has only recovered in the last couple of days. The Atlantic front ice has also been pushed backwards and forwards and ended up with little change.

Small gains were recorded in Kara, Beaufort and the ESS as they filled.

Chukchi registered gains of around (+100K Km2) as the thicker ice from the Beaufort gyre extended eastwards into the region, although this pushed the ice already forming in Siberian side out of the way again.

The first signs of ice formation in the SOO, Bering and Barents was observed during the week, around average in most cases for the date, and Baltic and Labrador Str, started to form, Ice also has just shown around the NW tip of Iceland.

Temperatures were higher earlier on in the week, with DMI first of all rising, but falling again in the last 2 days.

So it looks as if (as expected) the ice has fallen from the extreme levels of last week, but it is now in a reasonable position, and I expect some consolidation next week towards a respectable 6th to 8th position.

The latest from Jaxa shows the fall from last week -

and demonstrated by the years graphs -

So 2018 currently in 9th (down from 13th last week), but is still above the 6-8th range expected.

This next week looks to be the defining week for the 2018 season. Another 'low' week will see any notions of an ice recovery, a good week will still leave the option open.